Chicago pastor says an ICE officer grabbed his throat during peaceful protest

Rev. Michael Woolf, the pastor at Lake Street Church of Evanston in Chicago, is one of many faith leaders putting their bodies on the line to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detentions and treatment of immigrants. Chicago has seen a surge in immigration raids targeting undocumented people over the past few months, part of the Trump administration’s so-called “Operation Midway Blitz.”

Woolf frequently protests at the Broadview processing facility just outside Chicago, where officers have been especially violent toward protesters. Woolf is an American Baptist Churches USA pastor and part of the Alliance of Baptists, a progressive branch that’s had a long history of involvement in social justice movements. Chicago journalist Cassidy Klein spoke with Woolf.

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Cassidy Klein: What have you seen happening in Chicago right now with ICE?

Michael Woolf: ICE regularly comes into communities and kidnaps people, and they do so with the utmost terror and trauma. They regularly tear-gas people, and they cause car crashes and haul out people who end up crashing and arrest them brutally.

Broadview is where folks go when they are kidnapped from our communities. They go there to be processed and sent out to other facilities, like a detention centre. They are only supposed to be there for a maximum of 72 hours, although ICE violates parameters all the time.

CK: What has it been like protesting at the Broadview facility?

MW: I’ve been there five or six times. The unifying demand is that the facility be closed and that charges be dropped against protesters. Protesters are peacefully gathered; I wear my clerical collar to easily identify myself as a pastor who is committed to peace.

When I was there in early October, I was poorly treated by ICE: I was struck and pushed back, and had bruises all over my chest. They grabbed my throat, and then one officer grabbed — there’s no nice way to say it — my nipple and twisted it as hard as they could, while standing there in my clerical collar 100 percent committed to peace. They are going to brutalize whoever they want.

If ICE officers are willing to do that when the whole world is watching, what are they doing in that facility in which they have absolutely no accountability? We know that what goes on in that facility is torture; one meal a day, deprivation, conditions that are inhumane and dehumanizing.

When I went to Broadview on All Saints’ Day, they shot me in the leg with a pepper ball and used chemical munitions on the protesters. We were in the street, peacefully gathered to petition our government for redress of grievances, and we were met with an outrageous amount of force. People get head injuries, concussions. I watched them take an older woman with a cane and slam her on the ground; she was crying for an hour after. What’s happening there is unconscionable.

I tried to talk to officers and said, “If Jesus came back right now, would he be excited about what he saw?” Officers have a choice to make, if they want to participate in love, goodness, mercy and truth, or if they want to be on the side of evil. They are making that choice right here on this line, and I asked them to reconsider their choice.

[The apostle] Paul talks about our fights against powers and principalities, not just against flesh and blood. These are the powers and principalities; they are out to play. What is the church going to do about it?

More on Broadview:

The Broadview fight is connected to rapid response teams trying to prevent deportations and kidnappings in our neighbourhoods. Rapid response teams are groups of folks who are trained on how to show up to where ICE is reported, warn people, videotape encounters and try to get ICE to leave their communities. In townships across the Chicagoland [Chicago metropolitan] area, there are highly organized people who are getting trained. I’ve seen people become mobilized in real time because of the cruelty of ICE.

For me, being at Broadview is telling those people that when they get kidnapped from our neighbourhood, we didn’t forget you. We continued to where you’re being held, and we continued to try to get you free.

CK: You’ve written that what’s happening is a “spiritual emergency.” Can you say more about that?

MW: This is absolutely a spiritual emergency. We are somewhere in 1930s Germany in what’s going on, and whether the church is going to be silent is being tested.

Luckily in Chicagoland, there are some pastors and interfaith clergy who are willing to stand up. It’s really important to show up, not just because what you do for the most vulnerable — Matthew 25 — you do for Jesus, but it’s also important because it’s pastorally healing for people. I’ve never had so many conversations with people who are like, “I can’t believe you’re a real pastor, that there’s people in the church who care about this.” It’s healing for people to know the church isn’t just a social club.

CK: For people of faith who live in Canada or outside the United States, what could solidarity look like right now?

MW: For people in Canada, especially church folks in Canada, one power we have is prayer. It’s really important to continue praying about this issue, but to also put pressure on the government. The United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church — these places have power. A word from people who have real measurable power can help in the situation.

I can’t imagine what it must look like from the other side of the border, but it’s not all people just completely acquiescing to what is going on. There are people who are really involved in the struggle, and they are faith-based, and they’re not going anywhere. We’re going to be in it for many years because the struggle against fascism is ongoing.

CK: What’s given you courage?

MW: I think the fact that we don’t do it alone. Community has given me hope. I’m also doing this for my seven-year-old daughter. I want to give her a world in which she can thrive and where evil doesn’t have to win. It’s important to fight for that world.

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This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity and length.

Cassidy Klein is a journalist in Chicago.